1-26-09

What Should Have Been Obama's First Two Executive Orders?

Obama's first Executive Order should have directed to members of the US Congress, the Justices of the US Supreme Court and every American who takes an Oath of Office to do as he will do, everyday, before starting work, preferably with their hand on a Bible, and repeat, " I, (their name) Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office (their Office) of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Obama's second Executive Order should have been directed to the members of the US Congress and Obama should have directed them to read Article. I. Section. 8. clause 10, of the US Constitution and remind them of their responsibility "To declare War." Obama should then have told the US Congress as Commander in Chief of the Army and all US military forces he is directing our military forces not to engage in any military action in Pakistan, including sending drones over Pakistan and dropping bombs on sending clandestine operatives in Pakistan until he, Barack Obama, is directed by the US House and Senate to engage in military action against Pakistan.

Although The Huffington Post Welcome January 24, 2009 had a big headline 3 DAYS OF UNDOING BUSH, it failed to point out that none of the initial actions of Obama undid any of comrade Little George's Executive Orders which amounted to Little George's systematic eight year war on the US Constitution. Huffingtonpost's headline is nothing more than misleading propaganda calculated to give the American people the false hope Obama is different from comrade Little George. Which, of course, Obama is not. The same bad guys Rothschilds and Rockefellers, who own our banking system and are responsible for the recent economic meltdown, have made Obama their chosen replacement for comrade Little George.

As a matter of fact, Obama has started as president with two violations against the US Constitution. First, because both of Obama's parents were not US citizens when Obama was born, Obama is not even eligible to be president. So the thought Obama will keep his Oath of Office to preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution is false. Actually a main reason the bad guys , Rothschilds and Rockefellers, made Obama president is because they are confident Obama will continue comrade Little George's destruction of the US Constitution. Logic dictates there is no reason to assume Obama will be loyal to the US Constitution. Obama's second violation of the US Constitution, day three, is found in this headline and article, Obama Orders Pakistan Drone Attacks. The US Congress has not directed in any form or fashion the US military to engage in military action against Pakistan. Unconstitutionally, comrade Little George allowed US clandestine operatives and US drones to engage in military operations in Pakistan. If the US Congress did direct the US president to order our military to fly drones or step one foot inside Pakistan they would be in violation of International Law which prohibits one country from invading another. The first line of the article is telling, Tim Reid in Washington "Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed." The article uses the words "suspected US drones" because what the US did under comrade Little George and now under his clone, Barack Obama, is unConstitutional and illegal. Why don't the members of the US Congress keep their Oath of Office and do what the people who elect them tell them to do? Members of the US Congress are owned by and controlled by the bad guys , Rothschilds and Rockefellers, and do the bad guys' agenda, and not as they are directed by the US Constitution to do.

Chief Justice John Roberts a communi$t? Racist ?

Anyone who has done any pubic speaking knows that at the right time one is able to screw up saying their own name correctly before a crowd. That's why most of us would not venture to "hi" to a large group of people without having it on a 4 X 5 card to remind us just in case we go blank. So why in the heck did the Chief Justice Roberts leave his saying the Oath of Office for Obama to repeat to memory? Then of all things, improvise an incorrect clause? Who the heck knows, but my guess is if Roberts ever administers the Oath of Office again he will have the words written down on paper. This is really an unbelievable mistake. Do the people who are required to say the Oath of Office hate it so much and violate it so often they can't even speak the words correctly? communi$m? racism? Maybe when they get the drip for making war on the USA, it will help them recall their Oath of Office correctly.

Chief Justice Screws Up Oath -- Obama Blanks
Posted Jan 20th 2009 12:38PM by TMZ Staff

So the oath didn't go particularly well, and here's why. Chief Justice John Roberts screwed up the second line and it seems that threw Obama off track.

The oath, found in Article II Section I of the Constitution, reads, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States....

The Chief asked Obama to repeat these words, "...that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully...." It's "of" the United States and the word "faithfully" should have come before the word "execute."

How Dumb Do They Think We Are?

The media had been connecting the Palestinians and Hamas so frequently to Iran even I, who has studied the Suuni Shiite relationship for years, had to research things a little to check on the connect between Iran and Hamas and the Palestinians. So after I did my research and assured myself Iran is Persian and mostly Shiite and Palestinians are Arabs, Hamas and Sunni I started looking for articles which called this fact in to question. You see, Arabs, Palestinians, Hamas, Sunni verses Persia, Iran, Shiites have been killing each other for a long time. So for the media to imply Iran and Hamas are on the same side is insane, bigger than a big crock. The article Iran to help reconstruct Gaza Strip Thu, 22 Jan 2009 was the first article I have read since my research, and the title gives the reader the impression Iran and Hamas are on the same side. Sure both Arabs and Persians have a problem with Israel. But usually no bigger problem than Shiites Persians (Iran), 20% of Muslims have with Sunni Arabs (Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, ect ) 80 % of Muslims. The bad guys finance Israel and Hamas and Arabs and Sunni. The bad guys do not finance Shiite Iran. Al Queda, the guys blamed for 911, which of course they have been framed, are Sunni Arabs. Shiite Iran are Sunni Arabs natural competitor and many times, thanks to Big George Bush, their fight to the death enemy.

An alarming article published, January 25, 2009 US navy seeks arms bound for Hamas is a total and complete lie. Lies are how the communists operate. When communi$t$' want something, like a war with Iran, they make up a huge lie. Get this massive lie included in the article, " AN American naval task force in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza." Hamas is not an Iranian ally. Hamas is Sunni Arab, Iran is Persian, mostly Shiite. In the Iraq Iran war, over a million brave Sunni Arabs kids and Persian Shiites kids fighting each other lost their lives. Actually it was Big George financing Iraqi Arabs who manipulated this blood bath know as the Iraq Contra Affair. Iran is not an Islamist ally with Hamas, Iran is an Islamist enemy of Hamas. This thought that Iran is on the side of Hamas is pure propaganda and a total and complete lie designed for the sole purpose to putting the United states and Iran in a war against one another. A horrible aspect of this communi$t lie is born in the fact the US navy is engaging Iran's navy. Actually I have been predicting it would be a naval engagement which gets the USA nuking Iran. Why? Because in a naval engagement the nuking starts before the people have a chance to interpret the truth. A naval engagement is one big "he said, she said." All the navy has to say is Iran attacked one of its ships, so the US navy responded by nuking Iran off the face of the Earth. WWIII has been started before there is a chance for the people to weigh in on the subject.

It is really irritating the communi$t$ can insult our intelligence and sell the world a bill of goods that Hamas is an Iranian ally. Actually logic dictates Hamas is being supplied through Israel. How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas Why? Because the bad guys, Rothschilds and Rockefellers, finance both Hamas and Israel. This is the core of the bad guys biggest scam. Rothschilds finance two adjoining enemies, Hamas and Israel, tell them both what to do, and blame the fighting between Hamas and Israel on Iran. The communi$t$ blatant lies which insult my intelligence really bother me, not to mention the fact communi$t lies are the stuff a world at war is made.

Actually there are articles out there that point out the connect between Hamas, Sunni, Palestinians, and the many other countries in the Mid East which are mostly Arab who are helping Hamas and the Palestinians, mainly because they are all Sunni. Israeli envoy leaves Egypt after discussing lasting Gaza truce , Israel to allow Egypt to boost force on Gaza border to fight smuggling By all rights Shiite Iran and the USA should be on the same side because Iran has been at war with al Queda for years.

The bad guys are enslaving the people by propaganda more than by force. A big part of the bad guy propaganda entails not telling the people who our enemy is. Clearly our biggest enemy are Sunni Arabs. It is interesting Sunni Arabs live in Kenya and Obama may in fact be on the side of Sunni Arabs. It makes sense. The bad guys, Rothschilds and Rockefellers, want to enslave the American people by putting us in their, making the USA, a communi$t police state. What better way to do that than to install a president who is really making war on the USA. When the USA goes to war against Shiite Iran, the USA is fighting on the side of Sunni Arab al Queda, the guys who are killing our soldiers in Iraq. The bad guys' success is based on an uninformed electorate.

Fist Jab - Big George Defines It

The fist jab debate is interesting because most of us do not know what it means. Well, I had heard about it, in one ear out the other. But then I read comrade Little George and his photographer had given each other the fist jab, and I knew it was time for me to get serious about understanding the fist jab.

The question as to what the "fist jab" means arose when Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, gave him the fist jab when the media declared Obama the Democratic nominee for president. A news commentator, E.D. Hill, saw the gesture and used the words "terrorist fist jab." She was removed from her news commentator job. Why get rid of a news commentator if she was not telling the truth? No big deal. She made a mistake. Ms. Hill was removed so this implies she was telling the truth, Michelle Obama gave her husband a terrori$t victory gesture. Also the look on Obama's face says "Michelle, you are making a mistake." One's question progresses to, Why would the Rothschilds and Rockefellers make Obama president if Obama wasn't a communi$t? So logic was dictating for me at first blush the "fist jab" is some sort of communi$t happiness gesture.

So I did a little research on the "fist jab" and to my disappointment became confused because there were so many definitions out there. A varied and nuanced ritual- an informal greeting between casual friends- Is it a vertical "fist jab"? Is it being used by those who truly understand the "fist jab"? A simple contact between two clinched fists? Used by those who aren't trying to put on airs to seem hip. This is the predominant male greeting in casual circles. Is it being used by complete idiots?

One thing for sure, Little George has proved himself to be a devout terrorist and communi$t. A question in the interview with the photograph Little George did the fist jab jumped out at me. Q. Everybody had a nickname. What was yours? A. Nothing ever stuck. One day it was Big Eric; another day Erich, with a hard H, like in German. So it crossed my mind the photographer might have a bit of German discipline in him. That can lead to terrorism. Certainly not conclusive, but a lead.

However, when I came across an article about and a picture with Big George giving the "fist jab" with his tennis partner, Anna Kournikova, my mind started making up its mind. Big George's picture giving the "fist jab" was taken a few days after Michelle and Barack gave theirs, so certainly Big George was impressed by it and defining it. Big George hates Russia and was using Anna Kournikova to define the fist jab as a communi$t gesture and he could care less if it hurt her public persona. She had no clue what he was up to, but to my mind Big George was telling us he is a terrorist and by extension so are the Obamas. It is significant Little George gave his fist jab months after the fist jab first broke as news, after his father had defined the first jab as a communi$t gesture, and as he was an one day old ex president. It comes across as me that Little George was saying he a terrorist just like dad and the Obamas.

So that's my take. When it comes to the Obamas, Big and Little George, the fist jab means a happy terrorist making the world a communi$t police state. Why is comrade Little George happy in this picture? He knows he has done a good job destroying the United States. He knows what the communi$t$ have in store for the world with Obama as president. We will see if he stays this happy when he is indicted and convicted and given the needle for treason against the USA on six PM news.

A Fox News television presenter is to be taken off air after she accused Barack and Michelle Obama of greeting each other with a "terrorist's fist jab".

E. D. Hill, a veteran of the Fox network, made her comment after the presumptive Democratic nominee and his wife affectionately bumped fists on stage last week as he prepared to make his victory speech.

Before a commercial break on her America's Pulse show, she asked: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/bush_gives_fist.html?s_campaign=8315

< Back to Front Page Text size – + Bush gives fist bump as farewell to official photographer
Email|Link|Comments (35) Posted by David Beard, Boston.com Staff January 23, 2009 07:19 PM

(Photo by Eric Draper/AFP/Getty Images)

By David Beard, Globe Staff

Eric Draper spent the last eight years alongside George W. Bush as the chief White House photographer. Draper, 44, who had covered the 2000 campaign for The Associated Press, took the White House from film to digital as he met world leaders and mixed it up with Britian's Prince Philip. He also received an unexpected farewell gesture from No. 43 earlier this week. Here are excerpts from a telephone interview with Draper, who spoke from his home in Alexandria, Va.

Q. When was the first time you met George W. Bush?

A. When I started covering the campaign in 1999. I never really had a formal introduction, I was just part of the media traveling with the campaign.

Q. When did you get the job offer?

A. I still blame everything on the recount....If the election was decided that night, I would have probably moved on. But during the recount, everything was in limbo ... It gave me time to think ... I found out I had an invitation to attend the governor's Christmas party ...I thought this was my shot (to go for the job). My wife and I went, and at the very end of the party, I walked up to the President and said, "I want to be your personal photographer.'' I used a line he used in his campaign, "I want to look you in the eye and ask for the job.'' It was the longest handshake. About a week later, I got a phone call from Andy Card for an interview in Austin...When I met Secretary Card, I got the job.

Q. What were the unexpected ways it changed your life?

A. For starters, I had to buy a suit or two. ... Moving from quiet Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Washington D.C. was quite a flipflop for me...I really had no idea what I was getting myself into until I started... I traveled 18 months on the campaign and thought I knew what the president was all about, but I didn't, until I went to work for him. ... I was pleasantly surprised.

Q. He wasn't very popular in the African-American community. Did you get tired having to defend him?

A. I never had to defend him on the outside, and race was never an issue on the inside. What surprised you was that people of all stripes really respected the president when they stood right in front of him.

Q. How did it compare with the 24/7 deadlines of The Associated Press?

A. This was the hardest job I ever had, and I'd worked 8 years at the AP. In terms of the travel, planning, execution and followup, this was more work than I'd ever have to do. You're dealing with really important people on all levels, and historic events. It was an intense environment. It was very extreme -- the stress, the fun, the laughter, the teamwork, and the camaraderie it took to accomplish the mission.

Q. Wherever he was, you were?

A. That was my goal. I wanted to use a photo documentary approach where I would try to be a visual diarist of what the president's administration was all about -- the daily schedule, the people who surrounded him. ... The president had the choice of how much he wanted me around, and he found my role was really important, and he wanted everything was recorded. If I wasn't there, I'd want a member of the photography staff there. I tried to be there as much as possible. For domestic travel, I tried to stick to all the warm states, not the cold states.

Q. Did you have to take vitamins and exercise to keep up?

A. One of the things I learned quickly was how amazingly in shape he was. He was a runner early in his administration, and mountain biking then became his passion. I was never in good enough shape to keep up with him, so I stuck to photographing him, not participating.

Q. Everybody had a nickname. What was yours?

A. Nothing ever stuck. One day it was Big Eric; another day Erich, with a hard H, like in German.

Q. What was your last assignment?

A. I made a photo of the president walking out, seeing Midland, Texas, for the first time as an ex-president. Midland wasn't the last stop. We went to an event in Waco, where we said our goodbyes and he left for the ranch. Aboard the plane to Waco, he asked me what I was doing. ... Then he said, "Let's keep in touch.'' Instead of a handshake, he gave me a fist bump. That's how it ended.

Q. You must have a thousand stories. Give me one:

A. I had an interesting experience when Queen Elizabeth was visiting the White House about a year and a half ago. Philip, her husband, was upstairs in the residence as well. Mrs. Bush and the Queen were headed to the other side of the room. I followed them until I realized that Mrs. Bush was taking her to the restroom. And then Philip says, "Are you following them to the loo?'' I said, "Uh no, I'm not.''

Q. When did it hit you that it was over?

A.The day the photos came down from the West Wing, the final weekend of the administration, it hit me. They were already removing the photos from the walls. I'd walk in, and there were no photos.

Q. What have you been doing since you got back from Texas on Wednesday?

A. Sleeping. (Laughs).

http://www.acetj.com/features/fistbump.php

Fist Bump (AKA Knuckle Bump)
The reason for this article. The male fist bump is a varied and nuanced ritual, but really only boils down to a simple concept - an informal greeting between casual friends.

Classic Fist bump (vertical)
Used by those who truly understand the fist bump. Simple contact between two clinched fists. Used liberally between men who aren't trying to put on airs or seem hip. In most casual circles, this is the predominant male greeting. In "hip" circles, this is seen as "played out" because those circles are complete idiots who care far more about wearing oversized $300.00 sunglasses intended for women.

Fox News presenter taken off air after Barack Obama 'terrorist fist jab' remark

E. D. Hill, a veteran of the Fox network, made her comment after the presumptive Democratic nominee and his wife affectionately bumped fists on stage last week as he prepared to make his victory speech.

Before a commercial break on her America's Pulse show, she asked: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says."

Media commentators noted that former president George Bush once used it with the tennis player Anna Kournikova.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/06/fistbump_affection_or_terroris.html

Fox anchor E.D. Hill suggested one interpretation of the fist bump was a "terrorist fist jab."

Thursday, June 12, 2008
Bush The Elder And Anna Kournikova - Clearly This Is A Terrorist Fist Jab!

Anna Kournikova

The us navy to be into iranian attack

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5581382.ece

January 25, 2009

US navy seeks arms bound for Hamas
The three-week Israeli assault on Gaza killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, most of whom were said to be civilians. About 400 were children

Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv
AN American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza.

According to US diplomatic sources, Combined Task Force 151, which is countering pirates in the Gulf of Aden, has been instructed to track Iranian arms shipments.

Last week the USS San Antonio, an amphibious transport dockship that serves as the command and control centre for the taskforce, boarded the former Russian cargo vessel Monchegorsk, which is registered in Limassol and flying a Cypriot flag.

The ship docked at an Egyptian Red Sea port for a detailed search during which, according to unconfirmed reports, weapons were found.

With a general election due on February 10, conservative Israeli politicians have been scathing at the government’s failure to eliminate the threat from Hamas, the militant faction that seized control of Gaza in June 2007 and remains a proxy for Iran.

A document circulated to ministers by Israeli military intelligence last week suggested that despite the bombardment, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is well advanced with a huge programme of arms resupply for Gaza.

According to the document, the Iranians are attempting to smuggle munitions from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, where the arms shipments are loaded onto commercial vessels.

In recent weeks at least two Iranian destroyers have been sent to the Gulf of Aden on the pretext of fighting piracy. The Israelis suspect that the destroyers, which are currently in port in Aseb in Eritrea, may have had some role in the shipments.

In January 2002, Israeli naval commandos stormed the Iranian cargo ship Karine A in the Red Sea. They found 50 tons of arms, long-range rockets and explosives being shipped to Yasser Arafat, then the Palestinian leader. Israeli defence sources believe the same route and methods are being used again.

According to the sources, once in the Red Sea the cargo is taken on one of two routes. The first is to dock in Somalia and Sudan, where professional smugglers carry the cargo overland to Sinai. In Sinai, Bedouin specialists smuggle the shipment into Gaza through the notorious border tunnels.

Despite intensive Israeli bombing, some tunnels remain open. Palestinian sources in Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s southern town, estimate that 100 tunnels are still in action, about 20% of the pre-war total.

A second arms smuggling route into Gaza has also been used by Tehran, according to well briefed sources. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has sent shipments through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean to anchor off the Gaza coast, inside Egyptian territorial waters, where the Israeli navy is barred.

After dark, Iranian frogmen transfer weapons in sealed containers to Palestinian fishing boats. This can prove dangerous as the Israeli navy may open fire without warning, but according to the sources it has worked well in the past.

The intelligence report suggested that Iran plans to ship Fajr rockets with a 50-mile range to Gaza. This would bring Tel Aviv, its international airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor within reach for the first time.

Tehran has also promised to rebuild Gaza. Last week Hamas announced that every home-owner whose house had been destroyed would receive €4,000 (£3,820). The families of those who died will receive €1,000 and the wounded will receive €500.

JANUARY 24, 2009 How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas Article
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By ANDREW HIGGINS
Moshav Tekuma, Israel

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.

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Abid Katib/Getty Images
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a "determined and successful military operation." More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.

Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire.

Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm "requires more than a long cease-fire" and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state "living side by side in peace and security."

A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals -- including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists -- reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people.

Israel's experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda.

APA /Landov
Hamas supporters in Gaza City after the cease-fire.
At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory.

The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO, which Israel regarded as a terrorist outfit and sought to crush until the 1990s, when the PLO dropped its vow to destroy the Jewish state. The PLO's Palestinian rival, Hamas, led by Islamist militants, refused to recognize Israel and vowed to continue "resistance." Hamas now controls Gaza, a crowded, impoverished sliver of land on the Mediterranean from which Israel pulled out troops and settlers in 2005.

When Israel first encountered Islamists in Gaza in the 1970s and '80s, they seemed focused on studying the Quran, not on confrontation with Israel. The Israeli government officially recognized a precursor to Hamas called Mujama Al-Islamiya, registering the group as a charity. It allowed Mujama members to set up an Islamic university and build mosques, clubs and schools. Crucially, Israel often stood aside when the Islamists and their secular left-wing Palestinian rivals battled, sometimes violently, for influence in both Gaza and the West Bank.

"When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," says David Hacham, who worked in Gaza in the late 1980s and early '90s as an Arab-affairs expert in the Israeli military. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results."

Israeli officials who served in Gaza disagree on how much their own actions may have contributed to the rise of Hamas. They blame the group's recent ascent on outsiders, primarily Iran. This view is shared by the Israeli government. "Hamas in Gaza was built by Iran as a foundation for power, and is backed through funding, through training and through the provision of advanced weapons," Mr. Olmert said last Saturday. Hamas has denied receiving military assistance from Iran.

Arieh Spitzen, the former head of the Israeli military's Department of Palestinian Affairs, says that even if Israel had tried to stop the Islamists sooner, he doubts it could have done much to curb political Islam, a movement that was spreading across the Muslim world. He says attempts to stop it are akin to trying to change the internal rhythms of nature: "It is like saying: 'I will kill all the mosquitoes.' But then you get even worse insects that will kill you...You break the balance. You kill Hamas you might get al Qaeda."

When it became clear in the early 1990s that Gaza's Islamists had mutated from a religious group into a fighting force aimed at Israel -- particularly after they turned to suicide bombings in 1994 -- Israel cracked down with ferocious force. But each military assault only increased Hamas's appeal to ordinary Palestinians. The group ultimately trounced secular rivals, notably Fatah, in a 2006 election supported by Israel's main ally, the U.S.

Now, one big fear in Israel and elsewhere is that while Hamas has been hammered hard, the war might have boosted the group's popular appeal. Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, came out of hiding last Sunday to declare that "God has granted us a great victory."

Most damaged from the war, say many Palestinians, is Fatah, now Israel's principal negotiating partner. "Everyone is praising the resistance and thinks that Fatah is not part of it," says Baker Abu-Baker, a longtime Fatah supporter and author of a book on Hamas.

A Lack of Devotion
Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion. Its slogan: "Islam is the solution. The Quran is our constitution." Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia.

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement.

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood. In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war. Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi. He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief. "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi.

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.

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Heidi Levine/Sipa Press for The Wall Street Journal
A poster of the late Sheikh Yassin hangs near a building destroyed by the Israeli assault on Gaza.
The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly. In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad. He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

Mr. Cohen, who worked at the time for the Israeli government's religious affairs department in Gaza, says he began to hear disturbing reports in the mid-1970s about Sheikh Yassin from traditional Islamic clerics. He says they warned that the sheikh had no formal Islamic training and was ultimately more interested in politics than faith. "They said, 'Keep away from Yassin. He is a big danger,'" recalls Mr. Cohen.

Instead, Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the recent war.

Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.

Mr. Segev says he had regular contact with Sheikh Yassin, in part to keep an eye on him. He visited his mosque and met the cleric around a dozen times. It was illegal at the time for Israelis to meet anyone from the PLO. Mr. Segev later arranged for the cleric to be taken to Israel for hospital treatment. "We had no problems with him," he says.

In fact, the cleric and Israel had a shared enemy: secular Palestinian activists. After a failed attempt in Gaza to oust secularists from leadership of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Muslim version of the Red Cross, Mujama staged a violent demonstration, storming the Red Crescent building. Islamists also attacked shops selling liquor and cinemas. The Israeli military mostly stood on the sidelines.

Mr. Segev says the army didn't want to get involved in Palestinian quarrels but did send soldiers to prevent Islamists from burning down the house of the Red Crescent's secular chief, a socialist who supported the PLO.

'An Alternative to the PLO'
Clashes between Islamists and secular nationalists spread to the West Bank and escalated during the early 1980s, convulsing college campuses, particularly Birzeit University, a center of political activism.

As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.

A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."

A year later, in 1984, the Israeli military received a tip-off from Fatah supporters that Sheikh Yassin's Gaza Islamists were collecting arms, according to Israeli officials in Gaza at the time. Israeli troops raided a mosque and found a cache of weapons. Sheikh Yassin was jailed. He told Israeli interrogators the weapons were for use against rival Palestinians, not Israel, according to Mr. Hacham, the military affairs expert who says he spoke frequently with jailed Islamists. The cleric was released after a year and continued to expand Mujama's reach across Gaza.

Around the time of Sheikh Yassin's arrest, Mr. Cohen, the religious affairs official, sent a report to senior Israeli military and civilian officials in Gaza. Describing the cleric as a "diabolical" figure, he warned that Israel's policy towards the Islamists was allowing Mujama to develop into a dangerous force.

"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.

Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."

Roni Shaked, a former officer of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, and author of a book on Hamas, says Sheikh Yassin and his followers had a long-term perspective whose dangers were not understood at the time. "They worked slowly, slowly, step by step according to the Muslim Brotherhood plan."

Declaring Jihad
In 1987, several Palestinians were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli driver, triggering a wave of protests that became known as the first Intifada, Mr. Yassin and six other Mujama Islamists launched Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas's charter, released a year later, is studded with anti-Semitism and declares "jihad its path and death for the cause of Allah its most sublime belief."

Israeli officials, still focused on Fatah and initially unaware of the Hamas charter, continued to maintain contacts with the Gaza Islamists. Mr. Hacham, the military Arab affairs expert, remembers taking one of Hamas's founders, Mahmoud Zahar, to meet Israel's then defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as part of regular consultations between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO. Mr. Zahar, the only Hamas founder known to be alive today, is now the group's senior political leader in Gaza.

In 1989, Hamas carried out its first attack on Israel, abducting and killing two soldiers. Israel arrested Sheikh Yassin and sentenced him to life. It later rounded up more than 400 suspected Hamas activists, including Mr. Zahar, and deported them to southern Lebanon. There, they hooked up with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed A-Team of anti-Israeli militancy.

Many of the deportees later returned to Gaza. Hamas built up its arsenal and escalated its attacks, while all along maintaining the social network that underpinned its support in Gaza.

Meanwhile, its enemy, the PLO, dropped its commitment to Israel's destruction and started negotiating a two-state settlement. Hamas accused it of treachery. This accusation found increasing resonance as Israel kept developing settlements on occupied Palestinian land, particularly the West Bank. Though the West Bank had passed to the nominal control of a new Palestinian Authority, it was still dotted with Israeli military checkpoints and a growing number of Israeli settlers.

Unable to uproot a now entrenched Islamist network that had suddenly replaced the PLO as its main foe, Israel tried to decapitate it. It started targeting Hamas leaders. This, too, made no dent in Hamas's support, and sometimes even helped the group. In 1997, for example, Israel's Mossad spy agency tried to poison Hamas's exiled political leader Mr. Mashaal, who was then living in Jordan.

The agents got caught and, to get them out of a Jordanian jail, Israel agreed to release Sheikh Yassin. The cleric set off on a tour of the Islamic world to raise support and money. He returned to Gaza to a hero's welcome.

Efraim Halevy, a veteran Mossad officer who negotiated the deal that released Sheikh Yassin, says the cleric's freedom was hard to swallow, but Israel had no choice. After the fiasco in Jordan, Mr. Halevy was named director of Mossad, a position he held until 2002. Two years later, Sheikh Yassin was killed by an Israeli air strike.

Mr. Halevy has in recent years urged Israel to negotiate with Hamas. He says that "Hamas can be crushed," but he believes that "the price of crushing Hamas is a price that Israel would prefer not to pay." When Israel's authoritarian secular neighbor, Syria, launched a campaign to wipe out Muslim Brotherhood militants in the early 1980s it killed more than 20,000 people, many of them civilians.

In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."

Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.

He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."